www.montereycountyweekly.com may 18-24, 2023 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY 19 were once detractors. “[During the pandemic] I had to hire someone else to be able to stay with my children and for them to do their school online because there was no other way,” Carmen Núñez says in Spanish. She runs a home child care business, and has three children of her own: Nicole, 11; Alexander, 9; and Kayla, 7, who all attended Monte Bella Elementary School remotely during shelter-in-place. After that bad experience, Núñez says she took a leap of faith when she received a flier about continuing remote learning—but she had a strong motivation: Alexander was being bullied. They reported the bullying at school, but still it escalated. She says Alexander was beaten and his food was stolen. He didn’t sleep well and missed classes. Núñez felt she couldn’t protect him beyond the school’s walls, and remote schooling through AVA gave her hope. “I felt it was a salvation for him,” Núñez says. The families of over 250 students currently enrolled in remote K-6 education in Alisal and SCESD felt similarly to Núñez, choosing to stay virtual even when schools reopened in-person. SCESD’s Virtual Academy was in high demand during its first year. “We had 13 classrooms, which far exceeded what we originally had planned,” says Erika Tumminelli, principal of the SCESD Virtual Academy, which currently serves 302 students, about 4 percent of the district’s total student body. Classes are synchronous, meaning students and their teachers log in at the same time for live learning sessions, like they would in an in-person school. At Alisal Virtual Academy, each class averages 10 students. The small class size is just one way that today’s virtual classrooms differ from the early, chaotic days of the pandemic—teachers and administrators have refined the model. They know how to use the technology (Google Classroom). Families are invited to pick up supplies in-person at school for activities at home. Parents and teachers say these adaptations are helping the kids who are enrolled in virtual school succeed. Núñez’s son Alexander Contreras, now in fourth grade, likes attending Alisal Virtual Academy, where science is his favorite subject. “We can learn about earthquakes and make things like buildings with our materials,” he says. His older sister Nicole, a fifth-grader, says online learning is “more fun” because they have more opportunities to be curious and learn through handson activities, with things like planting a seed, watering it over time and watching it grow. For Núñez’s family, AVA has been a game changer. “It was the best decision we have made in educating our children,” she says. She’s seen her kids gain confidence and expand their perspectives. “They say, ‘Oh, now we are going to be inventors, mom,’” Núñez says; they talk about NASA, and are initiating their own projects at home. In December, her kids created snow at home. They’ve built structures with Legos while looking at an app to guide them. Núñez has seen a stronger emphasis on technology, something she believes will help her kids succeed academically and professionally. There are about 70 students enrolled in the Alisal Virtual Academy, accounting for less than 1 percent of the total student body (AUSD’s student population is about 7,500). Alisal Virtual Academy Principal William Franzell says many of those students will return for the 2023-24 school year. “‘Yes’ was the overwhelming majority,” he says of parents who attended an open house. As the pandemic gets further into the background, interest has waned somewhat. AVA won’t have a kindergarten class next year, due to low enrollment. “We’re going to start with first grade because developmentally, they’re a little bit more mature,” Franzell says. Depending on interest from parents, kindergarten could be added back in the future. Since the pandemic, interest in virtual learning at Salinas City Elementary has waned, but maybe it’s leveled off. Enrollment in SCVA for the 2022-23 school year, 184 students, was town by 40 percent from the previous year. Tumminelli expects enrollment next year to remain steady. The transition away from the chaos of the pandemic to virtual learning 2.0 for elementary students didn’t happen overnight. It was a researched and documented process administrators worked on for months, reaching out to other school districts across the state that offered online classes, analyzing their approaches to adapt to their students’ needs. Joshua Harris, AUSD’s director of educational technology, says they wanted to offer different options for students and parents. And that includes not just technology, but some in-person elements as well. At the Alisal Virtual Academy, the school provides learning kits—bags of craft sticks, paper, Legos, books and more, that students utilize from home for science projects and math activities. Candace Ambrose is a fifth-grade teacher at AVA with 33 years of experience. “We’ve been teaching the same way for hundreds of years. We need Left: Candace Ambrose, a fifth-grade teacher at the Alisal Virtual Academy, uses an eGlass screen. The touch screen acts like a transparent lightboard, allowing students to see the teacher facing them while writing on the board. Below: Events like career day at Salinas City Virtual Academy are also opportunities for students to interact in-person. Daniel Dreifuss Celia jiménez
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